July 2016

Today at Cisco Live, Cisco's annual IT and communications conference, Datalink (DTLK) announced the addition of secure hybrid cloud capabilities to its all-in-one Cloud Complete package of services and solutions for fast-tracking IT transformation and associated cloud deployments. Cloud Complete bundles strategic planning, design and security services with both converged and hyperconverged infrastructures, private and hybrid cloud build-out, and technical support, creating a project framework that shortens cloud rollouts from months to weeks.

The new Cloud Complete security enhancementenables security policies to be defined within the hybrid cloud environment at the application level, based on an analysis of client workloads by Datalink consultants. The resulting microsegmentation - achieved through the software-defined network (SDN) features of the Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI)- makes it possible to segregate sensitive information such as billing and customer data to mitigate the risk that a hacker traversing the network laterally will be able to gain access to the most privileged accounts.

Tegile Systems, the leading provider of flash-driven storage arrays for databases, virtualized server and virtual desktop environments, today announced an integration with Cisco UCS Director to orchestrate and automate an end-to-end IT converged infrastructure management process.

IT deployment of data center resources make the difference between a successful enterprise and an ineffective one. Tegile’s IntelliStack integration with Cisco UCS Director improves consistency efficiency and speed. Through the integration, enterprises are able to deploy the latest in flash storage technology from Tegile supported with the Cisco UCS Director interface that manages infrastructure components including compute, network, virtualization and storage as well as public clouds such as Amazon and Azure.

Microsoft and General Electric (GE) have announced a new partnership to bring the latter’s Predix platform to Microsoft's Azure enterprise cloud service. The agreement combines GE’s software tools for collecting data from industrial machines with Microsoft's computing platform for building, deploying, and managing applications and services in the cloud.

The move is only the first step in what is planned to be a broad strategic collaboration to eventually allow customers around the world to capture intelligence from industrial assets while taking advantage of Microsoft's enterprise cloud applications, the companies said. The announcement was made today at Microsoft's 2016 Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto...

Diane Greene confirmed that when companies ask Google to join in the bidding process for cloud computing contacts, Google is practically always the winner. "We can actually win an RFP pretty much every time against AWS or Azure. Our growth is great. We have the best infrastructure, our own network backbone, our own fiber, a very cost-effective data centers, very automated,” Google’s head of cloud computing mentioned to attendees of the Fortune Brainstorm Tech show in Aspen, Colorado on Monday.

And that means Google can offer low prices on those request for proposals (RFP). Greene also said that internally, the culture at Google didn’t have to change that much to serve enterprises, which was even a surprise to her. While she’s spent her first seven months creating the kind of classic internal organizations that enterprises need (sales, support, a CTO office to help Google do more custom projects), the underlying culture was already a fit, she claims...

Nearly five years ago, Marc Andreessen famously proclaimed that “software is eating the world,” and he is probably surprised how much of the world is actually influenced by software today. Nowhere is this more true than in the brave, new world of the Internet of Things (IoT). No matter which market forecast you read, the commonly held view is that nearly every product and service will be connected over the next decade.

And these connections wouldn’t be of much value unless there is software in place to determine what data points should be captured and what actions should be taken in response to the information being collected. As I’ve stated in a previous Datamation commentary, there are three primary reasons to pursue an IoT initiative – to react faster when a problem arises, to better predict potential problems before they occur, and to identify new market opportunities...

Any journey is a combination of where you start and where you want to go, and this is a critical component of the OpenStack vs. VMware debate. Enterprises have been using VMware for years but other IT vendors that work with those enterprises have committed to OpenStack. The outcome of the tug-of-war between VMware and OpenStack may depend on two emerging applications of the cloud -- network functions virtualization and the Internet of Things.

Virtual resources create a new level of complexity for data center operations teams. Traditionally, many companies installed and integrated their applications manually, or relied on simple operating system scripting languages. But if you have to deploy applications to a resource pool, simple scripts leave too much room for configuration errors. Enterprises now rely on DevOps tools for agile deployment support...

Tintri, a leading producer of VM-aware storage (VAS) for virtualisation and cloud environments, today announced that We Are Cloud (WAC) is using Tintri's VMstore to simplify management of its virtualised workloads. Since deployment, WAC has eliminated the need to hire or retrain specialised storage admins and has clearer visibility into its servers, network and storage.

Founded in 2015, WAC is one of the fastest growing cloud service providers (CSP) in the UK, delivering a wide range of hosted services for its customers -- including MS Exchange, Citrix XenApp-based virtual desktops, servers and online back up. WAC needed a storage platform that could both support a breadth of customer needs and reduce management effort.

IndependenceIT's next-generation software platform, CMP+, allows IT administrators to create and automate Software Defined Data Centers (SDDCs), as well as public, private, or hybrid cloud-based servers, applications, and workloads. The solution allows for greater choice in how these services are orchestrated and deployed. CMP+ permits administrators to provision and manage not only servers, but meaningful workloads where performance, availability, and accessibility can be tuned through administrative policies. Designed for both enterprises and IT service providers, the platform provides the highest level of automation and pre-set workflows to improve support, reduce administrative management, and lower costs.

Mirantis, the pure-play OpenStack company, today made operating a private cloud easier with the release of Mirantis OpenStack 9.0. Based on the Mitaka Openstack release, Mirantis OpenStack 9.0 includes a rich set of features to simplify lifecycle management of OpenStack.

"The improvements in Mirantis OpenStack 9.0 are based on real-world production deployments of Mirantis OpenStack, including our collaborations with AT&T and Volkswagen," said Boris Renski, co-founder and CMO of Mirantis. "The improvements we made - largely in the area of post-deployment operations - integrate Mirantis' services expertise into the software so that we can deliver better business outcomes. Mirantis OpenStack 9.0 will be a valuable asset to Mirantis as we help customers build and operate private clouds."

CloudLock, the leading Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) and Cloud Cybersecurity Platform, today announced its expanded cybersecurity orchestration ecosystem, delivering advanced malware detection capabilities through integrations with OPSWAT and VMRay to complement the company's existing integration with the threat emulation capabilities of Check Point. The first-of-its-kind integration unifies protection against malware and the growing volume of ransomware across hybrid cloud environments.

"The threat landscape -- particularly for malware -- is evolving as more organizations shift workloads to the cloud and adopt online business productivity and operations applications," said John Amaral, Head of Product Delivery at CloudLock. "By extending the power of CloudLock's cloud-native, multi-mode CASB through integrations with leading providers, our mutual customers gain powerful insight and threat mitigation capabilities to secure environments from the growing barrage of malware."

Virtuozzo, powering more than five million virtual environments as the leading virtualization platform for service providers, announced along with hosting partner netclusive that Thomas Cook, one of the world’s leading leisure travel groups with more than 22 million customers, has adopted the unified Virtuozzo storage and virtualization solution as the foundation for its hosted e-commerce platform. netclusive, Thomas Cook’s hosting provider, cited the need for the travel company to cope with seasonal demand peaks that could impact the customer e-commerce experience.

“Thomas Cook needed a single platform to manage an e-commerce project,” said Robert Simon, Managing Director, netclusive. “Virtuozzo was the only solution that could deliver this flexibility on a single platform while providing high availability.”

Bynet Data Communications Ltd. today announced a partnership with Stratoscale, the software company revolutionizing the data center, to deliver comprehensive, flexible and scalable data center cloud solutions to its customers in the organizational sector. As part of the agreement, Bynet will execute the marketing, sale, presale, assimilation and maintenance of Stratoscale’s solution.

Stratoscale’s 360 degrees partner program, PartnerFirst, was created with an all-inclusive approach to maximize partner’s technology, products and services with the goal of bringing mutual benefits to customers and partners. By partnering with Stratoscale, Bynetis bringing new innovation to market and delivering value to its customers by leading them into the next generation of private cloud data centers. Bynet has already assimilated Stratoscale’s solution into the core of its own cloud platform.

Following the thrill of quickly onboarding your team to a new cloud application, following the excitement of being able to experience instant productivity, comes the realization of an additional silo that is disconnected from everything else -- from other users, other business applications, and other processes. How will this new system work with all other existing applications?

How will your team share information and activities provided by this new application with others in your organization? And once again you start searching various marketplaces for point-to-point connectivity solutions. The rapid rise and adoption of cloud applications has amplified the silos within the enterprise, further disconnecting teams, processes, and information...

Azure Stack, the important hybrid-cloud product that Microsoft announced in January, will be more limited than some developers hoped. Now in Technical Preview 1, Azure Stack is intended to help companies bridge on-premises and in-cloud computing — a challenge that many companies face as they move toward the cloud and assess which apps should run where.

Azure Stack’s promise is that developers can write a single application that runs unaltered on-premises or in Azure, and that management and automation tools will run equally well in both locations. Today, Microsoft VP Mike Neil wrote that Azure Stack’s general release, targeted for mid-2017, will combine software, hardware, support and services — and will be available only from Dell, HPE and Lenovo, at least initially...

The only certainty about Brexit, the UK’s departure from the European Union, is that it is going to create uncertainty in terms of data sovereignty, particularly in the field of cloud computing. Data sovereignty refers to data being held in a country in adherence to the laws of that state. That is fine if your company is based in a single location and single market but it becomes trickier if you have diverse locations and lots of different laws with which you need to comply.

When the UK is part of the European Union it has the same data sovereignty laws as other countries in the EU but when the UK breaks away those laws could change. In time companies operating in Europe may have to manage one set of data laws for the UK and another for EU member countries. By voting to leave the European Union the UK fractured what was becoming a single digital market into potentially two or more jurisdictions for technology issues...

China's largest server maker Inspur Group Co Ltd teamed up with Ericsson AB on Wednesday, to tap into opportunities brought by cloud computing and Internet of Things (IoT). Under the deal, the two sides will jointly design and build internet data centers and telecom equipment for countries along the "One Belt and One Road" initiative, which was proposed by China to promote trade and communications with Asian and European countries.

Inspur will combine its edge in cloud computing with Ericsson's 5G technology to help build smart city projects, with focus on smart parking, green energy, smart home and other areas. Sun Pishu, chairman of Inspur, said: "Our two companies' businesses are highly complementary and the tie-up will help deliver better technological solutions."...

At this week's Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, I saw a shift in vendor focus. Last year, the big focus was migration. Whether the product was Office 365, Azure, or Dynamics, the framing was how to migrate, so many vendors offered migration tools. This year, despite a continued strong presence of migration offerings, the buzz had shifted to cloud management, typically via managed services offerings.

Rocco Seyboth, vice president of product and marketing for BitTitan (a company traditionally focused on migration), said vendors seek to shift from offering a one-time set of project services to offering recurring managed services. Being able to offer a combination of services after migration is essential for businesses to remain relevant -- and keep making money...

With cloud technology advancing at lightning speed, sometimes as an industry we fail to step back and look at everything that it helps us accomplish - not just at a technological level, but at a social level. Much like the three industrial revolutions before it, the fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0, is expected to change life as we know it, Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith said during his keynote on the final day of Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC).

Smith says that this revolution will be defined by advances in the physical world (robotics, 3D printing, etc.), biological (testing, engineering, tech that will change human health), and the digital world (IoT, Blockchain, disruptive business models). “Each [revolution] is fundamentally fuelled by one or two enabling inventions,” Smith says. “They are all connected to and fuelled by the same thing – the cloud.”...

The Internet of Things (IoT) could be a game changer for agriculture in this country. Supported by cloud computing and 3G, IoT has the potential to improve agricultural ventures, big and small. It is a relatively cheap technology, but it is smart, pervasive and transformative. In general, it is rare for people to think about the internet in connection with agriculture.

But IoT technology allows farmers to connect devices to the internet to improve management and operations to reduce waste, better control pests and disease, efficiently use farm inputs and streamline livestock management, thus, raising productivity. What is IoT? There is no universally agreed upon definition of IoT. In simple terms, it is a technology that connects any device to the internet...

WebNMS, a division of Chennai headquartered Zoho Corporation was founded in 1996 to make software for monitoring telecommunications. In the late 90’s when the telecom boom happened WebNMS was remotely monitoring telecom equipment all over the world. By 2009, the IoT (Internet of things) started to pick up. IoT adds sensors and internet capability to manufacturing equipment, diesel generators and also to many everyday physical objects.

“Earlier communication was only between machine to machine. With IoT, the telecom platforms talk to the machines”says Prabhu Ramachandran, director, WebNMS. “It is a natural evolution.” “In recent times, there have been several revolutions. Smartphones have changed the way we do business. Then there is cloud. IoT will be the next”, says Ramachandran...